


back to you

by humanveil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blackcest, Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23666680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: Sirius dreams of Death, which is to say that he dreams of his brother.
Relationships: Regulus Black/Sirius Black
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92
Collections: Daily Deviant





	back to you

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve ticked the _choose not to use archive warnings_ box, but there are flashbacks to a **past underage** relationship between them, and regulus is indeed dead, though he appears as a sort-of-ghost, which is really just a product of sirius’ mental instability.
> 
> written for the [april daily deviant](https://daily-deviant.dreamwidth.org/22168.html) prompts: sexual attraction to hands, and (loosely applied) sexual attraction/encounters with ghosts and spirits.
> 
> * * *
> 
> _that little kiss you stole / it held my heart and soul / and like a ghost in the silence, i disappear / don't try to fight the storm / you’ll tumble overboard / tides will bring me back to you_ — **deathbeds,** bring me the horizon

Sirius dreams of Death, which is to say that he dreams of his brother: pale-faced and translucent, less than corporeal. He stands at the end of his bed and stares, only stares, never really there at all.

—

_They are fifteen, sixteen, sitting half-secluded behind a white-stoned gazebo in Aunt Druella’s gardens: a formal brunch, the Black family gathered to celebrate the soon-to-be marriage of one of their own. Sirius ignores the celebrations, the way voices trickle across the grounds. He is not here of his own volition; he will not be joining in, no matter how much his mother glares._

_He rips grass from the earth, instead, each blade pulled apart and discarded. Dirt sprinkles over his new robe, his hands, his brother’s shoes; he feels it clump beneath his fingernails. Regulus is reaching behind him to sneak wisteria petals into his hair, the soft purple stark against the sleek, black curls (combed under Walburga’s watchful eye). Sirius would tell him to stop, but he finds he has no desire to. He likes the way Regulus’ fingers feel as they graze his ear, his temple, the back of his neck. Likes the way Regulus’ mouth curls at the side with the addition of every new petal: a perfect picture of quiet victory._

_They will be scolded for it, later. Sirius can already hear his mother’s voice._

—

When Regulus is six years old, he dreams of a monster that lurks at the end of his bed. _He has red eyes,_ he tells Sirius, lying curled against his big brother’s side, hands clammy and heart still racing. _Red eyes, but no face. None that I can see._

 _Don’t be ridiculous_ , is what Sirius had told him, but he’d still wrapped his arm around Regulus’ shoulders and pulled him close. Had play-bullied him until he’d fallen asleep with a smile.

He thinks of that now, as he listens to the crashing waves outside, the ripples of water eroding Azkaban’s walls down little by little; not quick enough.

—

It’s hard to keep track of time while imprisoned; day’s trickle into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. Sirius has no idea how long it’s been when he finally snaps.

His food tray is thrown across his cell, the metal passing through Regulus seamlessly and hitting the wall behind. It clatters, falling to the floor and leaving a mess in its wake. “ _WHY WON’T YOU LEAVE_?” Sirius screams, a sob caught in his throat. The words are hoarse; they burn on their way out.

Regulus’ lip curls: almost hateful. “That’s more your style,” he says. “Don’t you think?”

It’s the first time he’s heard his brother’s voice in years.

—

_Regulus finds him later, finds him_ after _, once Sirius has angry, red welts on his back. His brother has none, naturally; it is always like this, he thinks. Regulus will always escape the brunt of their mother’s punishment so long as he’s around to draw attention._

Bad influence, _his parents call him._ Don’t go corrupting your brother.

_“Let me look,” Regulus says. “At your…”_

_He trails, shifts on the corner of Sirius’ bed, his knees digging against the plush covers. There is a jar of healing balm in his hands, the cream thick, white, familiar. Sirius watches his brother gather a generous blob in one palm, the fingers of the other swirling it gently. He stares: can’t help it. He is transfixed by the way Regulus coats his hands with cream, with how his small, slender fingers curl around each other, the skin smooth, the actions careful._ Delicate. _It makes his body heat in a way that feels_ wrong.

_“Get on your stomach,” Regulus says. “C’mon—”_

_Sirius only hesitates a second._

—

“Do you remember,” Regulus says, one day, “the dreams I had when I was six? The man—”

“—at the end of your bed,” Sirius finishes.

He is staring at the ceiling, refuses to look at his brother. His hands are linked on his stomach, thumbs picking at their opposite purlicue, harsher than necessary. 

Regulus sits at the end of his bed. Sirius feels the phantom heat of another body, the rustle of sheets as he settles. “I’m starting to think it was me.”

—

When Sirius is twenty-two, he dreams of long, dark hallways with dusty carpets and portraits on the walls; of places that are familiar despite his best efforts. They are quiet, the places, which is to say that they are empty, or that they _should_ be.

“We could be punished for this,” Regulus whispers in his dreams, his breath hot, damp, _desperate._

Sirius wakes sweaty and sated, his chest heavy.

—

_“You–_ ah _—”_

_“Shut it,” Sirius hisses. His eyes are shut tight, little, white dots playing behind the lids as his hips buck up, into his brother’s hand. “They’ll hear.”_

_The noise Regulus makes is somewhere between a snort and a moan. “Doubt they’d care,” he says. He is lying at Sirius’ side, head turned so it’s pressed into Sirius’ shoulder, their arms crossing over each other as they work each other’s cocks. “Bet they’d be glad you’re finally following_ tradition _.”_

_He laughs, a huff of a thing, breath hot where it hits Sirius’ flesh. Sirius opens his eyes to look: can’t help it. He gets stuck on the way Regulus’ hand looks curled around his prick, fingers sticky and shining, covered in drops of Sirius’ precome. Arousal warms him inside out, a choked groan catching in his throat as he rocks against his brother’s hand, seeking release._

_He hadn’t meant for them to end up like this._

—

“I used to sneak into your room,” Regulus tells him, sometime later, when they sit facing each other on the bed, shadowed in the half-dark of Azkaban’s dying light, quiet voices melting into the soft patter of rain. “I thought it might make me feel closer to you.”

Sirius pictures Regulus breaking into his room, imagines his hands trailing over all that he’d left behind. It makes his chest twist. Makes his stomach clench. “Did it?” he asks, trying for disinterested. He’s not entirely sure he succeeds.

His answer is a half-smile, Regulus’ translucent face hard to see beneath the shadows.

He has a sneaking suspicion of just _what_ his brother would do.

—

“You want to, don’t you?” Regulus asks. “Still.”

“Go away,” Sirius mumbles. He’s lying face down on his bed, speaking into his pathetic, flimsy, standard-issue pillow. “ _Just—”_

He breaks off at the feel of phantom hands on his back. They stroke slowly, tracing the knots of his spine: tender and torturous. “Just think about it,” Regulus murmurs, voice in his ear. The brush of breath is absent. “Remember how we used to…”

He trails off into old, forbidden stories. Reminds Sirius just how _close_ they once were.

Heat pools in the pit of his stomach; _want._ He’d thought it impossible to get hard with dementors flying about, but beneath the blanket of arousal, the memories he has of Regulus splayed out in his bed, naked and panting, naked and _wanting_ \-- they aren’t _happy_ , not exactly. They are framed with layers upon layers of guilt. With the dread that would settle in his stomach afterwards and the whisper of his father’s voice.

_Don’t go corrupting your brother._

—

_Regulus makes a noise in the back of his throat: low and pleased. His eyes are half-lidded, face flushed pink with exertion, with pleasure. He has his hand held to his face, tongue licking Sirius’ come off each individual finger, sucking them into his mouth._

_“You like it, don’t you,” he asks, not quite a question. Sirius can only nod._

_Neither of them know he will be gone by the end of the month._

_Neither of them know he won’t have it in him to say goodbye._

—

Later, when he is sticky and sweaty and still shaking, Regulus settles at the edge of his bed and watches as he falls asleep. He’s still watching when Sirius wakes, only hours after; a _decent_ sleep something long-forgotten.

Sirius blinks up at him. “Still here, then,” he says, hoarse and hollow: a shadow of the boy he used to be. He thinks, maybe, he’d been expecting something different.

He thinks, maybe, that he shouldn’t’ve been.

His brother smiles, an odd glint to his eye. His voice is cold when he answers, “I always will be.”


End file.
